


Those skies, they soon will clear (in my life, now you’re here)

by NotThatLamia



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Dickon felt almost like a plot device, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, POV Sansa, Post-7x04, but he's not, i really didn't like season 6 but i won't pretend it didn't happen, seriously so much Sansa, spoilers duh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 07:36:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11801442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotThatLamia/pseuds/NotThatLamia
Summary: Daenerys pardons Randyll and Dickon Tarly, and they are sent to the Wall.





	Those skies, they soon will clear (in my life, now you’re here)

**Author's Note:**

> Let's just pretend the Tarlys bent the knee and Dany didn't turn them into grilled meat. Or, what could have happened if Dickon's arms were still attached to his torso and the world of Westeros were a much brighter place.

 

Later on, Sansa would have wondered how she could have possibly found herself sat on her brother’s desk, skirts held by trembling fingers and legs spread before a man she had only just met. To be completely honest, no explanation was needed as to why her brother’s guest had been leaving feather-like kisses on the inside of her thighs. Less than two hours before, she had been the one pushing him against a wall, making quick work of the fastening of his breeches, and kneeling before his heated gaze.

 

***

 

The thing was, by that day Sansa had come to see herself as a sufficiently rational and self-aware person. Her time as Joffrey’s betrothed first, Lord Baelish’s protégé afterwards, and, much to her horror, Ramsay’s wife lastly, had taught her much. She had learnt how to behave, how to smile, and nod, and curtsy, how to read a room and to give an appearance of calm. She had become smart enough to keep what she was thinking to herself, while foreseeing what was happening around her. And she had learnt to keep her eyes demurely down when it was asked of her, and her chin bravely up when it was needed. She now knew how to approach men, how to flatter them and eventually make them interested in her, even though she could have never reciprocated the feelings they seemed to bear towards her. She was used to their eyes following her figure, to their voices whispering from afar. But, as with many other distasteful things, she had made a habit of disregarding their behaviour and the rumours they helped spread, and of using them to her advantage.

Jon had been different from the other men she had met until that moment. He had welcomed her as a sister, as a true Stark, for perhaps the first time in her life, and he had made her Lady of Winterfell. Eyes had kept roaming and voices had kept mumbling, wondering why the King in the North had so easily left her in charge of what was left of his kingdom, or whether he had privately got something in return from her. Doubting him for those few decisions he had made before consulting her had been particularly hard for her: by that time, she had come to trust him, her brother, her King. However, the interests of their people needed protection, their lands administration, which meant Jon’s resolutions had to come from listening to all the available options. Disagreeing with him in those moments wasn’t to his detriment, but to his well-being. As much as she had disliked his choice of meeting the Dragon Queen on his own, with only Ser Davos and a few other swordsmen at his side, she was now proud of what he had accomplished. And that was why, when news reached Winterfell that he was coming back as a newly betrothed Northern ally to the Queen, she found herself open to recognise the merits of his decisions.

Only a fortnight after the raven had come, Jon was back at the castle, followed by a small army of men whose coat of arms she had trouble distinguishing from afar, and the most drangonglass she had ever seen. Davos rode beside him, a glint of satisfaction in his eyes and a brand new sword at his hip. Behind them, there were two men on battle stallions with the straight back that noblemen and men in the high ranks of the military usually have. They were not prisoners, that was for sure, for their wrists did not bear any constriction and Jon seemed comfortable in their presence. They were noblemen, she assumed, and since she had not met them in King’s Landing, nor at Winterfell, nor in any other of her travels in the past, and their skin did not have the rich brown tone of the southern lands, she assumed they came from either the Riverlands or the Reach. Uncertain about the reason for their arrival at Winterfell, she hid the frown that was attempting to show up on her forehead, while she waited for a formal introduction by Jon.

Her brother didn’t leave her in the dark for long, coming to hug her and nodding at the older of the two men immediately after. Having been given leave to speak, the lord introduced himself and the younger man at his left as the Lord Tarly and his son respectively, sent to the Wall by the Dragon Queen herself to prove their fealty to her by fighting the Strangers beside her betrothed, the King in the North.

Sansa welcomed the two, sent her servant to prepare their rooms, and finally turned to smile at them and gesture to follow her inside the castle, all that with no more politeness than was expected from a Lady of the North but no less than was required from the future sister-in-law of a Targaryen Queen. Yet, as much as she acted accordingly to what she had learnt from her years at the side of Petyr Baelish, she wasn’t able to avoid noticing the younger Tarly, Dickon, as she had newly found out, the breadth of his back, the clear strength in his arms, the purposeful strides he took towards the castle. Jon’s voice eventually distracted her from those wandering thoughts, bringing her mind back to the reason they all had come back, and to the imminent battle they were destined to fight.

 

***

 

That night, Sansa took her time letting her hair down and taking off the heavy dress she had wore to dinner. The winter had already started to affect their supplies, and little could be spared for Jon’s newly arrived guests. Still, the cooks had done the best of the little they had been given, and she was pleased by the way the castle had reacted to the unexpected enlargement of population.

She bid her maid goodnight as she started preparing for bed herself. When Jon had made her a Lady, that had come with a change in her rooms. She had taken her parent’s rooms and repurposed them for herself, all the while leaving around some remembrance of the couple they had been. The covers on the bed were the same heavy furs they had used, and the floors she had left naked of rugs, like her father had preferred. She used her father’s desk and her mother’s drawers, but she had brought an old dressing table from her childhood room, and she had placed a pair of armchairs before the fireplace, symmetrically facing each other. Standing in front of the mirror, she inspected her face, for the first time in years, and she marvelled at how different she found the woman that was reflected in there. Sansa had had round cheeks and light red hair, big eyes and a straight nose. That woman’s face bore almost no resemblance to her memory. Sharp cheekbones had taken the place of her previously non existent ones, her hair was darker and her mouth thinner, making her nose and chin pointier. She exhaled while she realised how much Baelish was right when he said she had taken after her mother in more ways than she could realise. However, as much as her face looked like Catelyn Stark’s, Sansa’s disposition was nothing like her mother’s. Sansa was a Northener and a wolf. She was not born to be a wife, nor to care after children. At night she still dreamed of a child with big grey eyes, much like those of her sister and brother and father, but the image became fainter with every passing day, and she had started to doubt she would ever see that child in the flesh. But the reason that night she felt disconnected from her mother was that Catelyn Stark had known only one man and chased no other, while Sansa had not been able to take the image of Dickon Tarly out of her mind since the moment her eyes had set on him.

She awoke in the middle of the night hot and flustered from a confused dream whose meaning she did not want to interpret, unable of going back to sleep. Although Sansa was a sensible woman, in that moment she felt as if her brain could settle on nothing else than the apparent strength in Dickon Tarly’s body, much to her frustration. Giving up, she allowed herself to go back to that moment when he had been in her presence. She recalled the polite smiles he had addressed at her, the smirk he had hidden behind his goblet at the way she had flippantly replied to Lord Tarly, when he had hinted that both the main rulers of Westeros had only been able to become Queens because of the hard work the men in their life had accomplished on behalf of them. She also remembered the softness of his voice, so at odds with his rigid posture. But, mostly, the way his Adam's apple had quivered when she had held his gaze while talking to him, or the way his eyes had kept following her hands throughout the meal.

Alone in her bed, Sansa tried to bring to mind when it had last happened to her that any man had left such an impression. She came up with nothing. In truth, no other eyes had ever captured her with that much intensity from their first encounter. No other frame had ever been this stuck in her mind. She had found men handsome in the past, and she had wished to be a wife, before she knew what a farce marriages could be. She still remembered Loras Tyrell, his open smile and chestnut curls, yet his memory didn’t stir anything in her, but for a fondness much like the one she felt for her brothers. And that was why, for the first time in her life, Sansa learned to listen to a part of her she did not know she possessed, the one that made her leave her room in the middle of the night, and knock at the door of the youngest of her guests, clad in nothing more than her shift.

She waited then, every passing moment weakening her resolve, until the door opened, and Dickon’s eyes took her in, awestruck, as if she were a dream materialised before him. She would have taken her time to look at him at such a short distance for the first time, if not for the rational part of her brain which reminded her how dangerous such a thing would be in a corridor where anyone could have found them at any moment. So she asked in a soft whisper if she could come inside, and he moved aside enough to let her in, closing the door behind him. Sansa threw a look at the place, at the small desk and chest on the opposite side of the room, at the embers in the fireplace, but, most of all, at the bed in the middle. She faced him purposefully. Dickon stared back at Sansa, seemingly unable to move, and she held his gaze, much the same. He was the first to take a step towards her, followed by a second one, finally cupping her face in his large hands and leaving a tentative kiss on her lips. Sansa, her eyes still open, grasped his shirt and tugged at the fabric, standing on tiptoes to get it off of him, and dropping it on the floor beside them. She breathed heavily while her fingertips hovered over his arms, from wrist to shoulder to wrist again. Her fingers then moved to map his torso, lingering on every dip of his chest and stomach, travelling down until they reached his breeches. She stilled.

«Is this a test?» he asked, voice broken by Sansa’s hands caressing his lower abdomen.

Sansa laughed at how inappropriate and daring the whole situation felt to her and kissed him in response, bringing a hand to the back of his head and opening her mouth to let him have the clearest of answers.

They took the rest of their clothes off swiftly after that, with the haste coming from the lust eating at them both, their hands exploring and their mouths hungrily chasing each other. The moment Sansa found herself naked before him she was surprised by how little fear she felt. His hands on her, so decisive in their movements, yet so very gentle, made her feel powerful in ways she couldn’t have thought possible until that moment. And when he eventually took her in his strong arms and gently set her on the bed, she took her time committing every detail of his body to memory, from his gentle eyes to the firm lines of his jaw and neck. From his strong shoulders and arms, to the hairs scattered across his chest. She felt her cheeks flush when her gaze travelled south, but she held it there for a moment, while her hands once again started to follow the same path her eyes had taken. Much like her gaze before, her hands stilled at his cock, and soon started to stroke it experimentally. Dickon swore under his breath and Sansa suppressed a giggle, feeling both younger and older than her actual age. When it was too much for him, he gently took her hands in his and lied beside her.

It was then Sansa’s turn to lie still and give him leave to touch her. «Close your eyes» he breathed in the shell of her ear, and she obliged.

His hands roamed over her body, caressing and grasping, mindless of the rugged scars encountered in their path. As flustered as she already was, it took little effort for her to near her peak, at which point she stopped him and pulled his weight over her and between her legs. He held her still from the waist and pushed into her, grasping her hands once more and bringing them over her head. They both lasted a few more moments, and gasped almost in unison as they came undone.

Once her body had cooled and she felt a shiver run down her back, Sansa hastily gathered her shift and put it back on. As she made to the door, she allowed herself one last lingering look at his frame on the covers and bid him goodnight, reproducing the same content smile displayed on his face.

 

***

 

They kept far from each other during the following days, sometimes intentionally straining their resolves so that the coming together at night was that more intense, other times failing at that and rushing to the nearest room to temporarily tame the fire that soared under their skins. But as much as they got acquainted with their bodies, they also took those nights to learn about each other. Dickon never asked questions, but he was a good and patient listener. Sansa eventually realised she could tell him things she had not brought herself to say out loud until that moment, not for fear of trying, rather for lack of someone to talk to. By his part, he told her of the strenuous relationship with his father, and the shame he felt at becoming aware how much pain he had caused his brother. She learnt how little he thought of himself as a lord and how much he would have preferred being born a soldier.

When the day they had to leave for the Wall came, she rode him fast and hard on the floor, not even waiting to be fully undressed before jumping at him. She hugged him tight and kissed him for a full hour afterwards, committing to memory the way the flames in the fireplace warmed her back and the rug rasped at her legs, the way he tasted on her tongue and felt under her fingers.

She bid the two Tarlys a formal farewell on the following morning, and told Jon to be careful and to come back to her, to which Davos kindly replied he would made certain all her men would be safe. She hugged him too at that, and thanked him.

 

***

 

Sansa was the one to propose to Dickon when the Old Goods listened to her prayers and brought them all back to her, dirty and tired and broken, but very much alive. She peeled the clothes off of his aching body that night, kissing every inch of skin as she revealed it. He held her to his chest when they were spent and murmured how much he had missed her into her hair. She had planned to propose to him then, yet she didn’t, unwilling to bring any form of unease in their bed.

She asked him to marry her and to be the commander of her army before what was left of her family and his father, on the day the Tarlys were planning to leave. And, much to his father’s annoyance, he said yes.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can yell at me on tumblr @ notthatlamia!


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